About Me

Heather

A youngish 40-year-old who's married to the man of my dreams (cliches be damned!) Suffering daily from fibromyalgia, the bane of my existence. Full-time servant to a tiny tyrant named Audrey, and I couldn't be happier about it.

My Blog List

My Blog List

Subscribe To

Saturday, July 17, 2010

In this post, I started telling you about my insane SIL. I know you're all waiting with bated breath for the continuing saga, so here we go...

I was 38 weeks pregnant, and SIL had just left my brother. Fine, okay, I could deal with this. Except for the fact that, instead of getting a place to live near my family (where we could help her with babysitting, picking up the girls from school, etc.), she decided to move near her family. Very, very odd, considering they've done practically nothing for her over the years. They wouldn't even come visit their granddaughters because they said it was too far away (about 30 minutes...I know, that's a long way. Pack an overnight bag). Puh-leeze.

Chaos ensued. Since Noah was not happy with SIL's parents even babysitting my nieces (from now on, I'll just call her parents the Insane Ones because it's more fitting), you can imagine what kind of hell broke loose. Seriously, not only do these people smoke around Elizabeth and Nichole, they have always left their ashtrays with smoking cigarettes in reach of the girls, ever since they were babies. And did I mention that Nichole has asthma? Yeah.

Many tears ensued, mostly on the part of my mom. You see, SIL had promised Mom many times that, if she and Noah were to separate, she would never, ever move near her parents because of the influences of The Insane Ones and the rest of their family.

I was caught in the middle, with my due date looming. I am prone to panic attacks, which is not good when you're trying to reach your due date. Let's just say I did lots and lots of yoga breathing.

So we dealt with it as best we could, but Thanksgiving was a sober occasion, as you can well imagine. SIL's empty chair seemed twice as big as it actually was. Total suckfest.

Meanwhile, SIL never called me, not even to check on my pregnancy. This was strange, since we'd talked at least once a day (sometimes half a dozen times) for the last nine months. To be fair, I didn't call her either, since I was in complete shock.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks to December 4, when we received news that my grandpa was dying. He was 91, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but still extremely upsetting. I dragged my 40 weeks' pregnant butt to his assisted living facility, knowing that this was the end. Did SIL show up? Nope, even though the rest of the family did. And even though she was pretty close to my grandpa.

After we got home, at about 10:00 that night, Matt's phone rang. I picked up, since he was already in bed. It was Michael, my step-dad. He told me that Grandpa had just passed away.

I immediately went to the nursery and sat in the glider. I'm not sure why, but Audrey's room has always been a comfort and place of peace for me. I cried and cried, but I didn't wake up Matt, as it had been a long, trying day, and I knew he needed his sleep.

Two hours later, guess what happened? I went into labor. Yes, you read that correctly.